Labor pledges to establish hydrogen capital in Gladstone

The Australian Labor Party plans to create 16,000 regional jobs it announced this week as part of its $1 billion plan to make Australia a leading exporter of hydrogen.

Funding would go to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to support clean hydrogen development in which zero-emissions fuel when produced from water using renewable electricity, or from coal or methane is combined with carbon capture and storage.

A six-point plan costing $90 million of unallocated funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) towards hydrogen technologies has also been proposed under Labor.

As part of the plan, Labor, if elected, will establish a National Hydrogen Innovation Hub in Gladstone, Queensland, where it intends to establish the area as the hydrogen capital of Australia.

"Industrial powerhouses like Japan are gearing their whole economy to hydrogen," said Shorten to gathered media in Gladstone yesterday.

"This is not science fiction," he said.

A Federal Government under Shorten would create a $10 million ARENA funding round for hydrogen refuelling infrastructure around Australia.

Research and development across 16 hydrogen projects garnered ARENA $22 million in committed funding last year.

Victoria and Japan are currently involved in an Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain pilot project bolstered by an additional $50 million from the federal government to trial the safe and efficient production and transport of clean hydrogen sourced from Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.